Hair
At 52 I had my 1st
bikini wax. Just past my half century mark, me and my sprawling pubic hair—the
Kudzu of the mature woman—me and my crawling-down-my-thighs-at-break-neck-speed
pubic hair, in an act of submission and curiosity, made an appointment to have my
taut tangles torn from my loins.
***************
I am lying on a soft, cream
colored table at the New You Day Spa.
Incense is burning, and a tiny, electrically powered water fountain is bubbling
in the corner. I’m wearing a t-shirt, socks and underwear. Unsure of protocol,
I had to call my twenty year old daughter the day before to find out what bikini
wax etiquette entailed. To my great relief, she, light-years ahead of me in the
waxing game, assured me that the denuding could easily be accomplished while still
wearing underwear.
I’m waiting on the seductively
comfortable glorified gurney, and am thinking about how I’m just moments away
from violating a very sensitive part of my body. I am trying to remain hopeful
that I won’t end up
looking like I have a very bad rash on a very wrong part of my body. What if I
have to wear shorts for the rest of the summer to cover my blunder? Why am I
doing this and who am I doing this for? But before I can answer any of these
questions, in walks Lauren; long, blond haired, beautiful Lauren. She floats in,
smiles her perfectly white toothed smile, and then together we peer at the humongous
amount of coarse hair that rambles along the edges of my Fruit of the Looms.
While she professionally scrutinizes the situation, I imagine she’s thinking, “Crap,
I have to go back downstairs and get a lot more wax!” Meanwhile I’m thinking, “What
happens if I pee? What happens if it hurts so much that a little bit of pee
squirts out at just the wrong moment? Oh God, what am I doing here?”
Lauren calmly explains that she is going to
apply wax to the overgrown areas, cover them with a cloth strip, and then
remove the hair. “Remove” is the word that has me worried. “Remove” reeks of
euphemism.
With an extra wide tongue
depressor, Lauren slathers warm goo on my jumbled thicket. I have been
instructed to hold my underwear far away from the wax. In this position
practically everything is exposed, and
I realize my panty-on or panty-off worry of earlier is a non-issue.
The warmth from the wax
actually feels soothing, and I begin to relax. Lauren is cheerfully chirping
about the upcoming summer, and I am beginning to forget what she is actually
about to do. While bantering back and
forth about sunbathing and sunscreen, Lauren is carefully but firmly pressing a
strip of cloth onto her expertly laid wax; she smooth’s it onto my groin as if
sealing the envelope of a love letter. I think, so far this is great, even tranquil,
when RIP! Off comes the cloth, out rips my hair, and a high pitched shriek explodes
from my lips. I have no idea whether my pee snuck out or not, because all my
bodily sensations are focused on this one area of skin which is crying out from
every violated hair follicle, “Why have you forsaken us?”
It takes about five more rips
per side to get out what is needed. Upon completion, onlookers will no longer
be offended by my unruly pubic hair; I am as smooth and hair-less as a newborn
baby’s bottom. “When you get home,” Lauren councils, “you might want to trim
the remaining hairs so they don’t poke out by accident.” Back home, I do as I
am told. When I’m finished, I look in the mirror, and to my surprise see my
twelve year old crotch smiling right back at me.
Now, as if all this were not
bad enough, there too are erroneous facial hairs to contend with. Years and
years and years ago, when my first born son was only three, he made an
innocent, yet startling observation at our dinner table. After looking
carefully at my husband, and then equally carefully at me, he concluded, “Daddies
have great big mustaches and Mommies have tiny little mustaches,” it was a
moment that made his Mommy so very, very proud. Not!
Currently, my “tiny little
mustache” is kept under control by tweezing. Filling my cheeks with air, I puff
them out in front of my mega-magnifying mirror, as I can’t see a thing anymore,
and use my slim, silver tweezers to tame my pelt. I actually did try to wax my
upper lip at home once. I bought a do-it-yourself pruning kit, and read the directions
as thoroughly as a jewel thief might study floor plans before a heist. The strips
went on, the strips came off, and I was left looking like Adolf Hitler in drag.
Chin hairs have also become
an unwanted issue. I have one particularly prongy one on the bottom right of my
chin. I’ve alerted my daughter of its existence so that in my dotage she can
extract it before I poke
out the eye of my yet to be conceived, but very much hoped for, grandchild.
I must admit, I am cautiously
optimistic that by the time my grandchild is faced with these same undesirables,
either her weaponry will have become more sophisticated and less painful, or,
and this is what the hippie in me most wishes for, that all our hairs, wherever
they may be on our bodies, be welcomed, embraced, and cherished for their natural
beauty and their Goddess given splendor. Amen sistah!
